Walt Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs provides an appealing story with various themes and messages. Originally aired in 1937, the film now appears dated; as could be expected, it is rooted in its period. It is culturally important as the globe’s first full-length cartoon, but watching it against the backdrop of today’s society exposes the film’s stereotypes and attitudes towards romantic love. A feminist critique reveals the abusive and superficial nature of romance in the film, whereas an anti-capitalist analysis of the story demonstrates the strong links between money and power.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is an adaptation of the Brothers Grimm story, and tells the tale of Snow White, an attractive young woman who meets and falls in love with a handsome prince, only to shortly afterwards escape an evil queen who wants her murdered. Snow White runs to the protection of a cottage belonging to seven dwarfs, where she is allowed to stay with them providing she cooks and cleans for them. Eventually, the queen finds Snow White and poisons her into a coma, which she is then woken up from by the kiss of the prince, her apparent true love. The opening shot of the palace tells the audience that this is a story with typical royalty links, but additionally that the fairy-tale offers royal lessons about life, primarily that love conquers all.
A feminist critic would view the subject of love within Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs as at best, dubious, and at worst, abusive. At the time of the film’s release, America was in the middle of The Great Depression, and unemployment and food shortages were rife (Stover, 2013). Snow White’s desires for love echoed those of many Americans: they took the optimistic view that love could lift American out of the shadows. According to Cassandra Stover (2013), at the time the film was written, there was: “a national desire for women to return to the home, a mentality that was widely represented in 1930’s commercial media” (Stover, 2013). She goes onto say that Snow White was a character that “fit the domestic expectations of pre-World War II women, and appealed to Depression-era escapism” (Stover, 2013). Certainly throughout Disney’s earlier films, and some of its later ones, Disney portrays the idea that women are incomplete without a male partner; Snow White is a prime example of this. From the beginning, she is dreaming of having a romantic, presumably heterosexual, relationship. Early in the film, she sings: “I’m wishing for the one I love to find me” (Disney, 1937) and this dreaming carries on all through the film. The prince is an archetypal Disney prince: he is tall, wealthy, white, and handsome. Fortunately, while Snow White is singing her song, an attractive prince is coincidentally riding his horse nearby and hears her. He immediately scales the fence separating them, and walks towards Snow White. She is afraid to begin with but, of course, the audience wants her to succumb to this man and understand that he is exactly what she wants. The simple nature of the story partly explains this, but there this scene also implies that Snow White, a woman, does not have the right to exert personal boundaries or that she should expect men to wait until they are invited into her space. Furthermore, this part of the film implies that men, who are so forceful that they abuse both physical and personal boundaries, ought to be seen favourably. Nonetheless, the prince sings a song to Snow White and, predictably, she falls in love with him instantly. A feminist critic would not view this type of love as appropriate, respectful or, for that matter, realistic. Once the prince hears about a woman in a glass coffin, he travels to find her and kisses her. It is true that this is what is required to break the spell, but at this point the prince is unaware of this. Therefore, he is crossing a serious personal boundary by romantically kissing a woman who is in a coma. A feminist analysis of the film’s depiction of love shows shallowness and, at times, abuse.
Similar to the feminist critique, an anti-capitalist approach also reveals some interesting dynamics within Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. In the story, there are two people who have power: the queen and the prince. As both are royal members, they are also wealthy. The opening lines of the film introduce the queen and the iconic phrase “Magic mirror on the wall, who is the fairest one of all?” (Disney, 1937). From this point, the audience is made aware that the queen is the most powerful person in the kingdom and can instruct her workers to kill people for no good reason. Conversely, the poorer characters such as the seven dwarfs and, for most of the story, Snow White, seem to have no power, either externally or internally. The seven dwarfs are called: Sneezy, Doc, Bashful, Dopey, Happy, Grumpy and Sleepy. This brand of characterization is probably because they are projections of Snow White; they have each of the qualities that she must fight if she is to move into adulthood and reach her full potential. The dwarfs appear to be people of a lower class; this is demonstrated through the fact they are miners, traditionally a job for the working classes. Numerous stereotypical characteristics follow this one, such as the dwarf’s poor table manners and decorum, and that one dwarf is mute. Soon after their meeting, Happy tells Snow White: “This is Dopey, he don't talk none” (Disney, 1937). All without wealth, Snow White and the dwarfs grow to like each other and their relationship is based on mutual care and favours. However, when the rich queen poisons Snow White, the penniless dwarfs are powerless to stop her, and even Snow White is not savvy enough to resist the trick. In the end, only the equally wealthy prince is powerful enough to save Snow White. In his article, Eva Illouz discusses a key sociological argument that the rise of capitalism has obliterated the chance of true romantic love. She claims that the theory: “leads to diagnosing the modern experience of love as undermined by money and commodities” (Illouz). Illouz actually appears to disagree with this view, but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs seems to inadvertently support it. Snow White has to marry the prince in order to regain her wealth and, therefore, her power. It is possible that her idea of true love is very far removed from a traditional concept of unconditional romantic love.
A feminist critique of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs reveals the fickle and, at times, abusive nature of love, while an anti-capitalist approach shows the connection between wealth and power. First shown in 1937, Snow White is now dated, but it reveals a lot about the ideals of America when it was in the Great Depression.
References
Disney, W. (1937). Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. USA: Walt Disney Productions.
Illouz, E. Consuming the Romantic Utopia. Berkley: University of California Press.
Stover, C. (2013). Damsels and Heroines: the Conundrum of the Post-Feminist Disney Princess. LUX: A Journal of Transdisciplinary Writing and Research from Claremont Graduate University, Vol 2. Los Angeles: University of Southern California.
